Hedi, Maria Grazia, Jonathan, and the Wild World of Designer Musical Chairs

0:28nd on the first leg of my book tour. My book, Selling Sexy, Victoria's Secret, and the Unraveling of an American Icon comes out today. Please buy it if you enjoy reading, or you can also hit up that audiobook if you don't. Later this week on the pod, I am going to be joined by my co-author, Chantal Fernandez, and we're going to talk about the process of writing the book and how we ended up doing it together and all that good stuff, sort of a behind the scenes episode. And we're also running an audio excerpt as a bonus episode. So I hope you enjoy that and maybe it will inspire you to buy the book.

1:12If you haven't already, please buy it. I buy like three or four books a week. I don't understand. I thought everybody just buys lots of books. I don't know. So it's an interesting industry to be thrust into as a news reporter. Speaking of, in this week's line sheet, I have a bunch about what's happening at LVMH right now. It's like a story that was supposed to be 600 words turned into, it's too long. There's lots of good info from the top to bottom. So I highly suggest you read that. And then I also did a readout of the YNAB, My Teresa Merger. If you read Line Sheet, you heard about this in March.

1:54I first previewed it back then, and it's finally coming to fruition. The merger of Uxnetta Porter Group and My Teresa requires regulatory approval, but I suspect that'll be fine. And I have a lot of details of why it makes sense, but also, and why it was inevitable, but also why it's like sort of a bummer for certain people involved. But generally it's super positive and I'm happy for everyone. And I hope this is the beginning of a market that actually is profitable and makes money because for years, online luxury has not. So we'll see. The one thing on that, I had a reader on the SMS channel message me and ask, why are we not worried about the FTC going after this deal or the Sachs-Niemann deal, whereas with Capri tapestry, Lena Kahn was all over that.

2:56And I mean, the main thing is, I think that Lena Kahn sees tapestry coach bags, Michael Kors bags as things that like, quote unquote, normal people buy, even though they're positioning them as luxury or accessible luxury in all the arguments. I think you can buy a Michael Kors bag for under 200 bucks at an outlet store. And so I think that that is why they decided to go over that aspect. With the retailers, I don't know why. I mean, I think one big thing is that Neiman Marcus and Sachs have said that they are not going to close any stores or they have no plans to close stores. so whether or not that ends up being true who knows but i think at least in the beginning they're not going to close stores so that's part of it but also the the average order value of these companies like michael klieger was the ceo of my theresa who's going to be sort of running the whole thing was talking about this on the earnings call and like the average order value his average order value just keeps going up up up up like i don't i don't know what it is off the top of my head, but like these are five, six, 700, 800,$900 average order values.

4:10This is not mass market. Whereas what Capri and Tapestry are selling in some cases is. And so I think that's the biggest difference. I didn't go into that in the piece because there was a lot of other stuff to cover, but you should check it out. No matter, I'm sure I'll be writing about this stuff a lot more in the coming weeks and months. And I hope you enjoy this conversation with Scott. I've known him for a long time. I've written about every company he's ever run, which is, I guess, only two, but it feels like more than that. We have a long, long history and it was fun to talk to him. He has a really good sense of the industry and like what people are doing and what they should be doing, what they shouldn't be doing.

4:55And I hope you enjoy the conversation. So let's get going. Scott Sternberg, welcome to Fashion People. Hey. Thanks for being here. Happy to be here. I hope that we can do this without just giggling the whole time. I know. I know. I'll do my best. So you are on a Monday episode, which is, well, a Tuesday episode. So it's the news day. So we don't ask people what they had for breakfast. but sometimes I assume you had something that was white beige. Correct. That's enough. I think that's a good enough description. Sometimes I do ask people what they bought this weekend. And it's funny. I was writing up line sheet, Monday's line sheet, mentioning you and the Google docs said that entire world was misspelled and it should be two words.

5:53And I was like, I think I remember it being one word. So I Googled it. And so entire world came up on the real real. And so I was like, Oh, maybe I should get some stuff. I never thought that that brand would proliferate on resale sites. It was like, you buy this for yourself and keep it right. Agreed. I did keep most of my, some of my stuff got too stained and I had to like, I think dispose of it or do whatever you do. But can I just tell you that a sweatshirt is currently, and not everything else, everything else is a little more affordable, but there is a sweatshirt on there right now that was originally$115 that is$92 still.

6:39It's wild. They were$88 original retail. it's on sale for 92 so the value of these products is remarkable that warms the cockles of my heart and also speaks to the fact that they were underpriced hence us not being in business anymore so we're going to talk about other designers today what are you what have you been up to can you say anything you've been up to probably not oh gosh listen i hate this word but I consult for brands. I do brand stuff. I do design stuff, beauty, fashion, etc. Typically, contractually, I put it in there that we don't talk about the fact that I'm working with brands, which allows me to extract my ego from the process and just try to help them achieve their goals.

7:40Well, I would assume the other thing is sometimes they may want to use you as marketing and that could be brand diluting for you. Yes, depending on the brand. I think, you know, back to my CAA agent days, understanding, you know, long term relationships. I try to leave that bit as like step two or step three so I can get paid more. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. so the first thing i planned i sent you some topics yesterday a little rundown of what we would discuss and the first topic on here was whatever news is announced sunday morning because i had wrongly assumed there would be news because on friday executives at caring sent out two emails.

8:30One said that they were going dark on social on October 6th, dark on social and like online advertising on October 6th, which is today, the day we're recording this on Sunday. And then the other point was they sent a second email saying, please, if someone emails you asking for comment about Maria Grazia Churi going to Gucci to say no comment. I reached out to them and I haven't heard back from them regarding any of this. And I probably won't because to be honest, if they told all of their teams to say no comment to me, why would they comment? But I just assumed something was happening. Maybe it still will.

9:17It's 2 p.m. in Los Angeles, or maybe it'll happen on Monday morning. No idea. I'm going to record the top of this podcast on Monday afternoon. That way I can catch anything. But the main thing is that there was just like a lot of craziness in Milan and Paris last week with who's going where, why people would be moving from one house to another. Are contracts being negotiated? Is Jonathan Anderson going to Dior? Is Kim Jones leaving LVMH altogether? Is Maria Grazia suddenly going to Gucci, which I had heard pre-Sabato Nassarno going to Gucci that they had talked to her. So I don't know. I've talked to a lot of people who are close to these situations.

10:07It seems like 95 % of this stuff is BS and maybe one of the thing will come true. But from your perch, what do you think of all these like designer musical chairs, do you think it's worse than it used to be? Or do you think it's the same and we just have like more iterative, more granular internet people going through it day to day? I think the latter to a large extent. I think what I love about our industry is just how much success relies on a singular creative vision driving that success. And the reality of how challenging it is to find alchemy between that vision and then the business structure in place, the people in place, the moment that that's happening.

10:55Yeah. And it's just fun stuff to talk about. I think Maria Grazia Gucci seems like a little rando and a miss to me, but I don't know anything. It's interesting. I think that so much of what these brands are selling is more than product. They're selling a culture and a set of ideas and values and all that stuff. So getting all those things to align, it's really tough. I don't know. I, you know, I've never really been recruited for any of those brands. So I don't know what those conversations are about. I mean, I guess I've done a project or that's not true. I have sort of been recruited for some of those brands, but it's, it's more, um, you know, the stuff I would want to talk about.

11:36I don't know if that's necessarily what is being discussed, which is maybe a little heady and not so not as the man heady, but heady, you know, intellectual value stuff versus product. But I don't know. Well, we'll talk about Eddie, not heady later. But on the Maria Grazia thing, yeah, I think like it made sense to me pre-Sabato because they wanted to make Gucci into, I don't know, $15 billion,$20 billion brand. And she is good at that sort of, she's good at that mastige thing. She did it with Dior, but now it feels like in order for Gucci to do well in the next 20 years, they actually need, either they stick with Sabato and Sabato keeps developing this and they take a, I don't know, a quote unquote long-term view, which I don't know if you can even say long-term when it comes to these companies anymore, but, and, and do the sort of classic look or whatever he's going for, or you hire a sort of disruptor type and make it really fun in a totally different way than the way Alessandro made it fun.

12:57And that seems more exciting to me, but I don't know. Yeah, I don't think it's about product and merchandising at this point. I think it's about a cultural reset, about why do we care about Gucci? What does it mean? You know, I was watching the Vogue Hulu thing in the 90s bit, and Tom for - Yeah, I need to watch it. Yeah, I mean, you don't need to watch it, but there's a couple - I do need to watch it. I'm getting pressure from people to watch. People are like, why haven't you written about it? I'm like, I have not had time. I had to watch the show about the Shiksa. It was more important. Oh, I'm going to rewatch that show.

13:31I want to live inside of Adam Brody's universe forever. But Tom and they talk about Gucci and how he had designed three or four seasons before the velvet suit, sexy, satin shirt season. It took him a while to kind of hit on not this kind of idea of what a Gucci woman would want to wear or heritage or any of that, but kind of align his own vision and what sort of drives him, his, you know, Studio 54 Days with this brand. And it all kind of hit. I don't know anything about Sabato. He seems really sweet on his Instagram. From what I've seen so far, he and a lot of these guys that are, and women, but mostly men who are being discussed for these jobs are incredibly competent designers who have done their time on teams in Europe for years.

14:24And they seem the most obvious, you know, sort of place to go to kind of, let's bring this person up. And that's not the qualifications for running a house like Gucci at all, like at all, at all, right? Right. So and sometimes this will really work like Bottega and Mathew, that really aligns because it's so much about craft and it's so heartfelt and it's small enough that it can kind of, you know, sort of swim in those ideas. And they really play well with the accessories. I think Gucci needs a much, much bigger vision that doesn't actually start with like a bag, but starts with like, why are we here?

15:04Why should anybody care? yeah so regardless of what happens with sabato which which i agree i think he it's just it's also hard you're you're under this microscope i've definitely talked about this in line sheet but probably on this podcast too the way that he was sort of positioned as this larger than life character when no one knew who he was in the beginning yeah it makes it hard when there was actually some cute stuff and you just can't think of it as just cute stuff because the way it was position to be like way bigger than that when it wasn't totally totally i mean that's it's so hard i mean think about phoebe having to start under her microscope and like with no room to experiment or get feedback or whatever it's just like it's it's tough every little mistake i mean in some ways it's part of the art if you think of what phoebe's doing is like an art project it's like all the mistakes are sort of are part of it but that is not easy that's not the way a lot of people see it.

16:05Do you think that this kind of all stems from that era of that, that big change in fashion when people like Demna and Virgil Abloh sort of came to the front of things and Demna was classically trained, but Virgil wasn't, he was an architecture student. I don't know if he was like, don't you have to have like a license to be an architect or something? I don't know if he ever got that far, but he went to architecture school and they were, I remember talking to executives in the U S who would be like, they've changed the way this works. Like you need to not just be a designer and an atelier making beautiful clothes.

16:46You need to also be a marketer. And you are also part of this. Like you can do creative advertising campaigns and not touch the clothes and still have an impact. It's very like 360 brand builder. Do you see that as like the sort of change, the rise of the two of them at Louis Vuitton and Balenciaga respectively, like as the shift in the way these brands operate? And now like they're, it's kind of biting them in the ass in some cases. Well, yeah, listen, first of all, I can't really have an impact 360 unless I'm really into the product. Like my, I work with a consulting client now and I do just visuals, just campaigns.

17:31And it's really fun because I finally have a budget to shoot stuff, but I have nothing to do with the product. And it's kind of a bummer. I mean, like, cause it's just putting lipstick on a pig or whatever, right. It's not, it's not really doing that. It really is a 360 thing. And I think to some extent, I'm trying to think back, You know, I don't really know a ton about Raph, but from what I saw from that Dior and I documentary, he's a mood board guy. He's a narrative guy. He is not sitting on his, he's not on his knees, like pinning up a hem at a fitting. Maybe he is. um so i don't know if that was a decision like a proactive decision by these executives to say we need to hire culture vultures to run these brands versus trained designers i think culture was telling them that in so many ways the market was telling them that you know i'm a guy who like launches brands this business of like heritage brands and keeping them fresh you gotta kind of mix things up, right?

18:33Like, you got to go to new sources, not just new designers from different houses, but people who think in different ways, people who are thinking who are iconoclasts, like Virgil is an iconoclast, you know, that's really his thing. He's like, me, to some extent, I'm always just thinking about the system. How's the system set up? How can I completely fuck with it while leveraging the best of it? And that whittles down to product, you know? Yeah. What do you think of LVMH selling Off-White to, I don't even remember one of these licensing firms. I don't even remember the name of it. the dustbin of the industry.

19:18I think it was inevitable. I think, you know, there is value to be extracted in a capitalistic situation. That value will be extracted. So I don't think anything LVMH is about would help Off-White as what it is right now become anything. I don't think Off-White is Virgil's legacy. I think his legacy is strong enough to kind of live beyond that. Like, I don't even think of many. I think of Pyrex Vision and the Nike stuff, the 10, specifically. Like, that stuff and the Ikea stuff he did with Off-White. But I don't think his legacy needs it. And I think, I don't know. It honestly felt a little cynical to me, Off-White, post-Virgil.

20:08I wasn't hitting. Yeah. By the way, the licensing firm is Blue Star Alliance, just so everyone knows. They also own Catherine Malandrino. She of the American flag dress. I used to do her reviews for style.com. Oh, wow. Yeah. So look, I agree with you to the extent of, do I think the stuff that's like in the design museum in London or in the museum of modern art in New York is like tainted because off white is owned by one of these stupid companies? No, not necessarily. But I do think like, and I also don't think LVMH should own it. Like that's not the business that they're in. And it was obviously like they were investing in him, not in that company in particular.

20:59I wonder if there was just like a more, I hate to use the word humane, but just like a nicer way to do it. Because it reminds me of, have you ever looked at the designs of Willie Smith? Oh my God. I wore them growing up. I worship Willie Ware and Willie Smith. It's very you actually. Yes. Yeah, it's very you. So they did a Willie Smith exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt. I want to say 2021. And I was so blown. And it makes total sense that this would be something that you would have a connection to because I was just so blown away by it. It was like, this is the most important American designer, like one of the most ever.

21:43And the only thing I know about it is from TJ, seeing it at TJ Maxx. And like, I've looked online to try to find stuff. There's nothing from his actual, his actual line. I'm sure that he barely sold any of it. And so the only thing left is the licensing. And look, like there's a, there's a Virgil Abloh foundation. There's a lot more, the world is different now. And, and his, his wife and family and all the people who care about him will make it, you know, they'll like work to, to preserve it. But I just think like, I wish that you could just close something. Listen, I loved how Pollyanna you're being business writer.

22:28Like it's very sweet. Two, two points there. First of all, these dustbin licensing companies, companies like band of outsiders or entire world would never get financed that they didn't exist. They represent a potential liquidity event down the line that makes it valid to actually start something new. So where's my, where's my band of outsiders stuff at TJ Maxx then? I know. Well, it was at Century 21 when we liquidated for quite some time. I have a lot of the real stuff still. So. Well, I'd love to hear it, but you know, listen, when I closed band, I didn't close band. I left band because an investment deal, I'd walked away from it.

23:05And so they got the IP. I thought in my mind and my perfect little conceptual mind that I was going to walk away and it'd be dead. And it would be, they would have a beginning, middle, or end and end. And just like you described, it would have a nice little bow around it. There's my little project. And maybe a few years after I died at some tiny little museum Dayton, Ohio, where I grew up, there'd be an exhibit. They tried to relaunch it twice, completely bastardized it. You know, like, it's just not, again, we're in a capitalistic system here. If there is value to be extracted, it will be, it will be wrung out until the last dollar is made.

23:43I felt bad. I did the interview with those guys when they relaunched, tried to relaunch it the first time. Those guys are real sweet. I wonder what happened to them. If you guys, guys, if you're listening, call me. I'm curious to the British guys. I think they were like, one of them was British. There were three of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They were very sweet, but it just was like not a good situation. God bless. God bless. Okay. Bye-bye.

24:21Hi, this is Jill Schlesinger, CBS News Business Analyst, Certified Financial Planner, and the host of the Jill on Money podcast. With the new year upon us, There's no better time to take control of your financial life. And the Jill on Money podcast is here to help. It's your questions that make it possible for me to provide unconventional and I hope entertaining insights on your money, more importantly, on your life. Follow and listen to Jill on Money wherever you get your podcasts.

24:53Let's not relive your terrors of the fashion industry. No, please no. let's move on to something. So understood I'm being too nice about Virgil. It is what it is. We'll see what happens. Whatever. I mean, look, like he changed the fashion industry. I can't read to read Robin Gavon's book, which hopefully we'll talk a lot about this. So moving on to something way more fun. Yes. Did you notice that Saoirse Ronan got a new stylist? Of course I did. And I know Danielle Nakmani slash Goldberg. She was Tina's assistant back in the day. So I worked with her before. She was Tina Che's assistant. That's so funny.

25:41That makes sense. I understand that lineage. Yeah, yeah. And she, I assume, was a big part of her sister wearing a lot of Entire World, which sold a ton of sweatsuits. So I love Danielle very much. I have noticed, I thought that was an interesting one for her. Yeah, it's really interesting because Saoirse worked with Elizabeth Saltzman for many years. And I have to say, like, I think Saltzman did a good job with her. I thought she always looked great. But the last two weeks, it's like total flip. And she's like hot. She looks so good. And she was always like really beautiful and always looked fabulous.

26:23Like I would have never been like, that's someone who needs to change stylists. And suddenly, I mean, Danielle is, what do you think it is about Danielle that makes her so good at celebrity styling in particular? Like, what do you think it is that she has that can like key into someone's personality or something? Yeah. I mean, first of all, she gets to the, she gets out of the way of their personality. You know, like all of these women are such singular talents. They, you know, sure, they're all indie or whatever, but like there's something so idiosyncratic about them and their own personal style.

27:01And there's a minimalism and a purity to what Danielle does. It's not about adornment. You know, it's sort of about pulling stuff back. So that kind of approach really helps, you know, so it lets somebody be them. Saoirse is interesting because I don't know. I'm just projecting. She's not somebody that seems to me to care about fashion. No. Or to have a super strong sense of personal style. Whereas, you know, Greta Lee or Ayo, you throw a dress on her, either of them, and they just like immediately know how to stand in that dress. You know, it's just like models when you're casting. You're like, that girl knows how to wear clothes.

27:39And Saoirse doesn't necessarily. It's not like her strength. So I thought she was an interesting one for Danielle out of that whole group because all those women are just – they're incredible the way they wear clothes. But I'm into it. It feels like it's still trying to find itself. Yeah. I've seen – there's lots of silhouettes going on, lots of color. But it's just so cool. In a way, I didn't notice at first because if you'd see her doing Jimmy Kimmel or whatever, she's so weird and cool. I don't know. like she comes from a different land, you know, a different time and place. Yeah. I wonder if like a lot of times when these who, I don't know anything.

28:21I truly don't. I haven't talked to any party involved. So I don't want to project too much because there might be a reason that like nobody needs to know that for the switch. But oftentimes when these things happen, it's like people just like want to change up or they often it's like a, their career, they feel like their career is being affected because their clothes are bad and they switch. And in this case, like that can't, that can't be it. But maybe there was just like, I just want to change. And I did, I noticed a very particular shift in the like vibe of it. And also that she was being photographed more.

29:00So like there, There is a photograph of like a street look that's all blue again. I was just on red carpet. With a button up shirt? Yeah. It's perfect. That's exactly what she should look like all the time. That felt like her. There's just an attitude that feels very modern. Maybe Elizabeth's just busy, by the way. Like you never know, you know. I have a feeling it's something like very low drama. And also it's not something I'm going to be like. But it's Ferragamo Resort. it's interesting that it's Farragama. I mean, it just looks really good. And she looks, she looks like she is young and she looks kind of, I thought she looked really good in that Hoda Kova dress.

29:42But yeah, it's fun. I mean, I think you're right. I'm obsessed with Hoda Kova. It's good. Did we talk about it on Friday night? I don't remember. No, it was really interesting because I went to see Marie Adam Leonard, maybe maybe I talked about this with someone else on a different podcast I can't remember but I went to see the Marie Adams Leonard and then I went to Hoda Kova and they're both LVMH prize and Marie Adams Leonard I love her she worked for Denma Denna she worked for yeah I do she worked for Demna for like a little bit I think maybe an intern or something she's Belgian and her stuff is like very like kind of weird patrician clothing so it's like very dressed up but like a little weird and i got a bit she has she's in a lot of the big retailers already and i really like it like has a lot of commercial appeal and the show was fine like it was good i like her she had it in this bistro that all the belgians go to before after they get off the train in Paris.

30:49It was really fun. Uh, but like the show itself, I was kind of like, this wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be. And then I went to Hoda Kova right afterwards and I was sitting with a stylist who I really admire. And she said, it's just very clear. Like, it's just very easy to understand what she's doing. Exactly. It cuts right through. I was so impressed. I am so impressed. I just think it's rad and I get the Margiela stuff, but it's like Duchamp came before Margiela. Like these aren't, these modes of thinking and designing and this process is nothing new. This is, this is a stream. This is something some of us do.

31:28I also at the show, A, they had these amazing chairs and B, she had like a screen up, very eighties of the runway. I'll send you some of the photos, but it looked so good. Cause it was like, you could see the closeup of the faces as the models walked. it was, it was cool. She's, she's a really interesting person. There's some, it's like when things are extremely weird, but somehow still feel really chic. That's when I get really excited. Like Duran Lentig is the same thing. It's like, it's weird, but like, this is glamorous and chic and so into it. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. That's a good, a good way to put it.